David Bohrman, long-time CNN executive, named president of Current TV

Current TV, which has failed to make much of dent in the prime-time news landscape with the debut of Keith Olbermann, announced a major off-camera move Monday in naming David Bohrman as president.

Until a few months ago, Bohrman ran CNN's Washington bureau and its political coverage. Along with international news, elections and Washington have been the bedrock of credibility for CNN's journalistic brand.

Bohrman resigned last week from a senior management position at CNN that placed him in charge of "innovation," a move that some saw as the eqivalent of getting kicked upstairs.

Bohrman's the guy responsible for the Magic Wall and 2008's election night hologram. That's the flashier aspect of him -- and it is a result of his keen sense of where media and new technology meet.

But to the best of my knowledge, he always respected and supported the talents of Washington journalists like Wolf Blitzer and John King. And that respect for fact-based journalism is what made me respect him. I hope I wasn't wrong.

It will be interesting to see how he meshes with an ideologue and showboat like Keith Olbermann.

The good news: Olbermann has to be desperate for anyone who can lead him out of the wilderness of marginalization to which he has been exiled.

Maybe if Borhman digs deep enough, he will find a journalist under all the rhetorical mustard that now constitutes Olbermann's act.

The question is whether Olbermann will be wise enough to listen to his new boss and become a responsible member of the press rather than a strange performer in a sideshow tent far off the midway of TV and American political life.

I will tell you what, I have not have made Current part of my nightly political viewing in this crucial election season. But I will now with Bohrman onboard -- at least, until Olbermann does something too reckless, slanderous or stupid to bear.